Momentary Frailty
by Honesty
Summary: Commodores of His Majesty's Royal Navy are not supposed to grieve. And certainly not over minor things like disappointment in love.


TITLE: Momentary Frailty  
  
AUTHOR: Mogs  
  
RATING: PG  
  
WARNINGS: None (what's wrong with me today???)  
  
GENRE: Vignette; het, sort of.  
  
DISCLAIMER: Him Blong Mouse. Me no money. Me no take characters.  
  
SUMMARY: Commodores of His Majesty's Royal Navy are not supposed to grieve.  
  
FEEDBACK Woo Yay! I mean, it would be much appreciated  
  
A/N: I'm still feeling my way round the characters, and the first half of this comes out better than the second, for which I think I can thank Murtogg.  
  
*snuggles Murtogg.*  
  
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'Sir?'  
  
Murtogg pushed the study door open gingerly, the short stub of straw still clutched tightly in one hand, wondering if this night would be his last night on God's good earth. You didn't disturb a Commodore at work in his office without good reason. Particularly when said Commodore had lost his fiancee and a pirate captain in one day, had sustained losses of fifty seven men, been forced into making some very strange decisions and finally shut himself in his office - for the last six hours.  
  
Gillette should be doing this, he thought, pronouncing the name 'Gillet' as everyone except the Commodore did. but Gillette was readying the Dauntless, and Groves, the next nearest, wasn't expected to live the night. And he, he thought self-pityingly, had drawn that damned short straw.  
  
"What is it, Murtogg?"  
  
The Commodore looked irritable, and perhaps a little tired. His hat hung from the hat-stand in the corner, and he'd managed somehow to get an ink stain on his wig as well as his fingers. A quill, and ink, and many, many papers lay spread across the desk. The paper he was writing seemed to be a list of casualties: he could see Groves's name at the head of the list of the injured.  
  
Assured that the Commodore still lived, Murtogg glanced at his face, to where the green eyes burned narrowly beneath dark brows. Murtogg faltered.  
  
"They just sent me, sir," he said too fast, "to see if you were ..."  
  
Lord ... he wasn't supposed to tell the Commodore that! It really was rather a mercy that the Commodore did not let him finish his sentence. "I mean, I-"  
  
"Murtogg," Commodore Norrington said with a decided air of false patience, "I am not about to blow my brains out, if that's what you are concerned about. I am merely writing my report on our recent ... unfortunate escapades."  
  
"Oh. Good." It all seemed rather foolish, of course, now that he could see the Commodore was all right. But that closed door - and for so long - had seemed so terribly worrying.   
  
"Don't we have clerks for that sort of thing, sir?" Come to think of it, the Commodore did look uncommonly weary. But then, what with one thing and another and undead pirates and things it had been rather a trying day.  
  
"Yes." And it was not a patient 'yes' either. "And if I left it to them they would be fussing and bothering me for a week for the finer details, or for how many aitches there are in 'abominable'. The sooner I get that whole unfortunate escapade written off and forgotten, the better it will be for the entire British Navy."  
  
"Oh. So..." He just managed to restrain himself from asking how many aitches there were in 'abominable'. The Commodore was watching him with the air of one contemplating whether or not to lose his temper. "So we're not going after the Black Pearl then?"  
  
"Assuredly we are going after the Black Pearl. I have no plans on letting the largest scoundrel in the Caribbean prey on English merchantmen a moment longer than I may." The Commodore's tense face relaxed momentarily into a mirthless, wolfish smile. "Sail all he may, there's no way Jack Sparrow's getting away from me this time."  
  
"Not like Miss Swann, eh?" Oh dear Lord, he'd said that out loud. He'd really said it. He'd surely lose his rum ration for this. It'd be the lash. Or the yardarm. Or the gallows.  
  
The Commodore stilled, his quill dropping softly onto the parchment list of names. "Indeed. Not at all like Miss Swann." He glanced down at it and snatched it up again. "You are excused, Murtogg.," he said without looking up. "Now get out of my sight."   
  
Murtogg got out of his sight, rather quickly.  
  
-----------------------------------  
  
She had been...  
  
Commodore Norrington laid down the quill again and rubbed his eyes, laying the stiff wig aside to rub his temples where twin dull pains pulsated and gnawed at him. Damn Murtogg and his eternal incontinence of the mouth!  
  
She had been an angel to him-  
  
She had been an angel - something pure and unreachable and perhaps not quite real, lovely and not a little terrifying. She had been so pure, and so beautiful, her figure lithe and boyish; her mind the equal of any man's. A fine woman - and it had been such a damnably inadequate phrase for what he had then known her then to be. An insult, compared to what he now knew of her courage and generosity of heart.   
  
He hissed at himself for his own indiscipline. This was not the time for thoughts of Elizabeth; this was the time for finishing reports - including justifying all those questionable decisions he had been coerced or bamboozled into taking, and then overseeing the ships for the morning to go in search of that accursed Jack Sparrow again.  
  
He pulled the paper in front of him again, but the writing seemed to have blurred in front of his eyes. He rubbed at them again and stared at the paper. The letters squirmed convulsively under his gaze, and he pushed it away irritably before pulling it back to him again to blot the damp ink before it smudged.   
  
The list was far, far too long. He had still to add to it the rest of those who still lived but were most like to die, and of the twelve who had been maimed, and who, too, would never be returning to active service. He merely had to write twenty more names. Follow that with a brief inspection of the Dauntless, and he'd be finished, until the dawn.   
  
It was perilous to the eyesight to be working so late at night, and with only candle-light to see by. Maybe just a few minutes to rest his eyes, and then he'd return to it. He closed his eyes and ran his hands absently through his hair, feeling the brush of the strands against his fingers.   
  
It had all been his decision, ultimately. No matter who had advised him, his was the responsiblity. He wondered if it would lose him his commission, when word got back to his superiors.  
  
Just at that moment he felt tired enough to welcome it. He longed, suddenly and sincerely, for somewhere dark and silent, somewhere to hide himself away, and, like a dog, to lick his wounds unseen and unheeded by the world. And then to sleep without dreams and to forget all his burdens.  
  
He wondered how it would feel, never to have existed.   
  
But that was pure self-indulgence, and unworthy of an officer of His Majesty's Royal Navy. Vexed at himself, he pulled the list towards him again, and began to write with tired, cramped fingers the remainder of the names of those injured or lost. If he couldn't pay attention to his duties he was no better than the criminals he fought.  
  
It was just a momentary frailty - nothing significant. It would pass. It would pass; and he would be himself again, when the morning came.  
  
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FIN 


End file.
